


Take Me Back

by araliya



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 01:26:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17819201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/araliya/pseuds/araliya
Summary: My final fic.





	Take Me Back

Chris wakes uncomfortably warm. The air around them is heavy and his shirt clings to his back, damp with sweat. Darren lies next to him, radiating heat like a furnace. He is, albeit fitfully, fast asleep. **  
**

Chris gets up, wincing as he peels his shirt off. They rarely leave the A/C on during the night because it irritates Darren’s eyes when he wakes up, but the windows usually remain open. This morning, they’re shut tight. They must have slammed closed with the winds last night.

 

As he draws the shades up, dull red light floods the room. The unfamiliar horizon glows cadmium, the sun rising like a portent. Chris winds the windows open, relishing the gust of cool air that comes with it.  _Red sky at night_ , he thinks, the phrase prickling on his tongue from beneath the sleep addled fog,  _sailors’ delight. Red sky at morning, sailors’ warning._

 

Chris almost laughs. He hasn’t forgotten what day it is today. He hasn’t been granted the mercy.

 

Darren stirs, knitting his brows and opening his eyes, squinting against the light. He registers Chris standing at the window. “It’s early,” he murmurs thickly. 

 

Chris crosses back over to the bed, leaning over him, pressing a whisper of a kiss to his temple. “I know,” he says. “Go back to sleep.”

 

***

 

His hands are shaking. There’s nothing he can do to hide it and there really isn’t any point; Darren’s close enough to see every tremor. He doesn’t say anything though, only puts a hand on Chris’ waist, rubbing ever so gently with his thumb. 

 

Chris can’t meet his eyes. He knows he won’t be able to handle the sadness in them, the thinly veiled  _misery_.  

 

Chris finishes tying the knot, smoothing his palms unsteadily down the front of Darren’s shirt. Darren catches one of his wrists, his left one. It gives Chris no choice but to look him in the eye- to give up, to give in.

 

“What do I say?” Darren asks quietly. The skin around his eyes is raw.

 

“I don’t know,” Chris replies. He can’t tear his gaze away from the pink smears blossoming on Darren’s skin. “Say that you love me?”

 

Darren laughs, short and thick. “That’s easy,” he says, and the next words arrive as easily as breathing. “I love you.”

 

Chris accepts the whisper of a kiss that comes with it, closing his eyes so as to convince himself that they could be somewhere else in that moment, Darren’s hands on his body, Chris’ lips on his.

 

The kiss tastes like salt.

 

A message pings on Darren’s phone, alien in the closing scene they’ve so unwittingly set for themselves. A sudden wave of hysteria hits Chris- he wants to  _crush_  that fucking phone, he wants to throw it out of the goddamn window. Instead, he says, calmly, respectably, “there’s your ride.”

 

Darren doesn’t even look at it. “Chris,” he says, near forcefully, “ _I love you_.”

 

Chris wants to cry, even though this is all a game, all some fucked up pantomime. “I know you do.”

 

A second message pings, and Chris draws in a sharp breath. He kisses Darren, fimly, and then pushes him towards the door. “Give her dress a good trod for me.”

 

Darren snorts. “You bet, baby.” The worry clouding Darren’s eyes dissipates as Chris watches him put on his mask right before his eyes. It’s like watching someone slide into a new sheath of skin entirely. Darren swivels his watch around to look at the time, and grimaces.

 

“I’ll be home tonight,” he says, as always. One last kiss, one final embrace.

 

Chris watches Darren walk out of the door, red on the horizon, saline on his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> To every beautiful reader who ever kudos’d, liked, reblogged, or simply took in my words, thank you. You gave me confidence to pursue my writing, kept me company through rough years and brought me so much happiness. Thanks to you, perhaps I may publish something in the future. 
> 
> All my love, 
> 
> Araliya.


End file.
